


Why the face?

by kaiyaknox



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-08
Updated: 2014-03-08
Packaged: 2018-01-15 00:01:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1283665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaiyaknox/pseuds/kaiyaknox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly asks her father why he makes that face when someone talks about the War.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why the face?

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt 596 from hpfanfictionprompts on Tumblr

Molly Weasley is three the first time she asks him, “Why the face, daddy?” after his eyes have squinted shut and his jaw has clenched to the point of grinding teeth. His skin looks funny; she can’t tell if it’s white or green, but his freckles look like ink splatters. He doesn’t answer her, doesn’t even look at her. It is her mum who pokes her nose and tells her to get back to her potatoes.

The next time, she is six. Her sister is three and, as usual, oblivious to the things happening around her. Lucy misses the way her father’s hands tighten—one on the arm of the chair and the other in a fist that props up his chin—the way his eyes close and his breath catches, the way his skin looks white and green again. Molly places her hand on her father’s tweed jacket sleeve. “Daddy?” Her mother tells her to help Lucy clean up her coloring books.

After that it’s, “Go tidy your room,” and “Go put your books away”.

She doesn’t get an answer until the age of eleven, when she is nearly ran over by two trolleys barreling through the train station. As it is, her books go flying and she loses the tiny stone she had been examining. The trolleys skid to a stop, two identical blond heads appearing from behind the large caged owls perched on top. “Sorry!” they shout in unison, tossing her bright grins—one of them missing a tooth—before wheeling their belongings around and carrying on. Molly shakes her head and mumbles to herself as she picks up her things, more affronted than angry. 

When she straightens again, she finds her father standing near her and staring after the boys. His face has crumpled in on itself, his eyes wide and his eyebrows like steeples, his mouth slack, but his fists gripping Molly’s trolley with white knuckles. “Daddy,” she demands gently, “why the face?”

His glance in her direction is wary, her gaze catches his and holds fast. 

He tells her about Uncle George, how he had used to be Fred and George—twins as identical and synchronized as the Scamander boys who had nearly mowed her down. Molly knows as much, of course. Her Uncle Fred had died during the war, and Uncle George had never fully recovered. He himself said his own laugh didn’t sound the same, not without echoing or being echoed. 

Her father tells her about how he had abandoned his family. Molly tries not to judge, but her initial disgust is there, if only tightly reigned in. She respects the man her father is, trusts him—so she waits for him to continue. He describes, only briefly, what he did for the few years before the Battle of Hogwarts. It is the most she has ever heard someone in her family speak about the war. The details fascinate her, and she itches to write them down. 

“It’s my fault,” he admits with a pause, “that Fred died.” Molly’s mouth falls open, but she quickly snaps it shut. Percy tells her, then, how he had rejoined his family and fought alongside them during the battle. Pride and admiration swell in her chest, replacing the surprise; the sorrow in her father’s eyes keeps her from expressing them. “I told a…joke. A terrible, awful joke.” His voice is hardly a whisper, but she understands. Her father rarely joked. When he did, silent shock followed before the laughter came. She had heard he had been much the same in his youth. His joke must have distracted Fred, and then… “Fred looked at me, laughed— He was so proud.”


End file.
